We had a special visit from Iron Age Matt this half term, which meant that we were able to truly understand how the Iron Age people would have lived at that time. It was a brilliant experience for us all and such fun!

Both Panthers and Jaguars created some wonderful writing after their Farm Trip to Bassetts and Folly Farms. The children were truly inspired, writing recounts and recipes and drawing some beautiful images. A lovely display was created from some of the work and is up in the shared area at the moment.

For Art Week 2017, the topic for the whole school was people, and for Jaguar Class, we looked at wire work and people from the present. Firstly, we discussed how we could represent the present, and decided to use our hobbies and sports as an inspiration.

We posed and sketched each other in various positions, using stick men to try to show our movement. we found a 2d sketch didn’t always show what we expected!

After this, we moved on to using wire to make a 3d sculpture, using cutting, twisting, moulding and bending techniques. We formed the body of a person using just two bits of wire, guided by our sketches to get the lines of movement. We found it was a fiddley process, but were really keen to experiment with the wire.

Our figures were then enhanced using extra wire and tissue paper, to great effect.

We are very proud of the results!

In Panthers Classroom, Mrs Robertson taught us about the proportions of a face and we used clay to create our own head! They all turned out well, with great character!

Our work on the Ancient Egyptians ended with us creating some wonderful factual posters detailing about everyday life in those times. Mrs Steven was so impressed with our work, that we have displayed some of this work in the reception area – if you pop in to see Mrs Boxall at all, you might want to take a look!

Also, our homework topic before half term asked us to study Whitchurch – as surveys, pictorial records and important facts. The work, again, was of such a high quality, that we have a display in the shared area upstairs, as well as displays in each Year 3 classroom! well done to both Panthers and Jaguars for this super work!

Jaguars have been busy this term, with the continuation of their Ancient Egyptian topic.

In Book Talk, we looked at Egyptian Houses – did you know that the poorest people lived by the River Nile, and had their house flooded out for three months every year? Jaguars are glad that the River Test doesn’t rise as much!

For Design Technology (DT), we experimented with art straws and tape to create a Shaduf – a crane-like structure to move water from the Nile to water the land.

The Shadufs were tested with a weight, and we found that structures with a triangles were the strongest.

We then decided to mummify our teddies, using techniques the Egyptian priests would have used.

After the mummies were wrapped, they were placed with a prayer in the tomb.

Our intrepid archaeologists have been discovering a new hoard of artefacts in a Pharaoh’s Tomb.

The 64 Mummified Cats, of a variety of sizes, were exhumed from the Tomb over the last two weeks. They are beautifully decorated, and although some have had wear from the centuries they have spent under the ground, they have been cleaned and are now on display at the Whitchurch Egyptian Museum, on it’s first floor.

The exhibit will be available for the general public to view until Easter, 2017.

(Actually, our clever artists in Year 3 have made these cats with papier mache techniques, using different glues, painting and bright pens to great effect – but they are SO very convincing!)